My Mind's Eye Blog

Classroom Valentines

We’re celebrating Valentine’s Day all week here on the blog. You are in for a treat! Today we have some ideas for Valentines to share with the whole class. These DIY Valentines are sure to stand-out and be a hit with your child’s classmates. 

 

Supplies: Now & Then “Dorothy" 6x6 paper pad and Now & Then “Mildred" 6x6 paper pad. Other: Silhouette Cameo (font: No. Seven) and cardstock.

 

This gem design is totally girly, but what kid—boy or girl—doesn’t love Ring Pops? When making Valentines like this in bulk, I like to keep it simple. Just a couple die cuts layered on top of one another.

 

I used my Silhouette Cameo for all three of these ideas. I flipped through my My Mind’s Eye 6x6 designer paper pads to match up some coordinating papers. I know I say it all the time, but I really love the 6x6 size pads, especially when I’m die cutting.

 

And here you go, this “You Rock!” one is more boyish. I picked papers that I thought would coordinate well with the candy packaging.These papers were pulled from the Now & Then collection (still my all time favorite My Mind’s Eye collection).

 

Supplies:  Now & Then “Izzy" 6x6 paper pad and Jubilee Tangerine “Awesome” enamel dots. Other: Silhouette Cameo (font: Contour Generator) and cardstock.

 

Maybe you’re not into giving your kids more candy on holidays like this—this pencil one might be more your style. I decided to use just one layer of paper for this one, but you could easily add a solid color behind the text. I like how the red sparkly pencil shows through. These three projects are all so easy to throw together and have that special handmade touch.

 

Supplies: Just Sayin’ 6x6 paper pad and Market Street "Ashbury Heights" 6x6 paper pad. Other: Silhouette Cameo (font: Days).

 

Because you all are so awesome, I made a .png file for you with these three designs. You can convert them to cutting files and use them for your own personal use. You can download the file HERE !!!

 

*This file is free for personal use only and is not to be distributed or republished.*

 

 

Enjoy!

 

 

 

Valentine's Day Gift Wrapping

Hi everyone! Tonya here with you today. Hope you are enjoying all of the Valentine's Day ideas we are sharing with you this week. Today I have a little gift ensemble to share with you. All of these projects were made using the Lost & Found Record It Heirloom collection. This collection has always been at the top of my list. It’s so feminine and the red glitter makes it swoon worthy for me.

 

Before starting my project I wanted to pick out two items that would be used on all three of the pieces so that they would look like they belonged to one another. Those two items are the pink/white chevron paper and the red glittered hearts.

 

Supplies: Lost & Found Record It Heirloom: 6x6 Designer Paper Pad, Ephemera Pack, Layered Stickers, Decorative Brads, Chipboard Elements, Decorative Tape, Enamel Dots

 

This card was a pretty simple one to make. I simply took a square of the pink/white chevron paper and trimmed the edges with pinking shears, then topped that with a smaller square of card stock that had a heart cut out of it. The medallion of the ribbon originally had a red circle in the middle of it, but I opted to use the little red glitter heart instead.

 

 

 

 

The little treat bad was made using a die and then I just simply layered some pieces from the ephemera bag and another glitter chipboard heart.

 

 

Wine bottles are always more fun to give if they have a cute little tag attached! 

 

 

Hope you all have a Valentine’s Day filled with love and CHOCOLATE!!!!

 

Tonya

 

Non-Traditional Valentine

Hey there, MME friends!!  Lea here today with a personal and special project to share with you!  It is Valentine's week, and as I thought about what I wanted to create...I realized that this will be the 15th Valentine's Day that my husband and I have been together. 

Supplies: Journal Cards: Record It Charmed, Follow Your Heart, Just Splendid, Here is Happy, All Things Chalk; Decorative Chipboard: Market Street Ashbury Heights & Nob Hill, Jubilee Sherbet; Word & Alpha Stickers: Now & Then Mildred, Izzy, Milo & Dorothy; Enamel Shapes: Now & Then Mildred & Milo, Enamel Dots: Jubilee Wild Berry.

I started by pulling out journal cards, transparency overlays, chipboard shapes & stickers with phrases & images that make me think of my husband. 

I used all of the different collections from 2014, and I had a ton of amazing items scattered all over my desk.  I started out by pulling the journal cards that really said what I wanted, and layered them together in a way that they would have good dimension as I started embellishing them.

Once I pulled my favorites & had them arranged exactly as I wanted them, I went through the cards and stamped love themed sentiments on some of them.  I didn't do this to every card...just ones that I felt could use a little extra statement.

I went through the stack of cards one more time, adding embellishments & alpha/word stickers to finish sentiments on other cards that I didn't include stamping.  This made the booklet feel complete, so I punched a hole through the left corner of all the items & tied them together with ivory twine.

This Valentine card is not very traditional, but I'm super exited to give it to my husband!  It says so many of the things that I don't think to say to him on a daily basis.  It's also a good reminder that you don't have to use Valentine themed product to create a card for that special someone!  Break into your vast stash of My Mind's Eye product & you will find a lot of items that can tell someone just how much you love them!

I hope you enjoyed my project today!

Lea

Valentine's Layout for Siblings

It’s February and with Valentine’s Day about a week away I’ll give you one guess as to what my layout is about.

Yep! You guessed it—LOVE. But not the mushy, kiss kiss romantic kinda love—it’s a layout about sibling love.

Supplies: My Mind’s Eye Jubilee Wild Berry 6x6 pad and Sherbet 6x6 pad. My Mind’s Eye Now & Then Milo 6x6 pad. My Mind’s Eye Jubilee Wild Berry “Today” enamel shapes and Wild Berry “Life” enamel dots. Other: Silhouette Cameo (font: No. Seven) and kraft cardstock.

I knew I wanted a layout with a bunch of photos. So I gathered twelve photos of my two cute subjects together and turned them all black and white to unify them. I just love black and white photos. Always have, always will. You can’t go wrong with black and white photos, kraft paper, and pops of color. It’s always winning combination in my opinion.



How cute are those conversation hearts!? You can find them in the Silhouette store. I picked four different patterned papers from a variety of My Mind’s Eye's 6x6 paper pads. I love the smaller scale of the patterns when I’m die cutting shapes. Also, I can load all four of these papers onto my cutting mat at the same time and get all my cutting done with one loading of the mat.



I finished the layout off with some enamel dots and hearts and colored stitching. Usually I stitch with either black thread or white thread, but with the black and white photos I thought a pop of color would be fun.


The countdown to Valentine’s Day has begun. Happy Friday everyone!

Upcycled Thrift Store Plaque

Hi everyone Laurel here.  I have an addiction...to patterned paper. I love patterned paper and some of it just makes my heart super happy. 

 

The Record It Pretty Things is one of those lines. I just love to look at it. The shabbiness, the roses, the woodgrain...sigh.

 

My other addiction is thrift store/garage sale finds. Yep I have a garage full and of course am always on the lookout for more.  I decided to use one of my wooden plaques for today’s project.

 

 

Now did you know you can use journal cards for altered art projects?  I did use a paper from the 6 X 6 pad but pretty much everything else is from journal cards. 

 

I started off just covering the front of the plaque with 2 journal cards and one piece of patterned paper that coordinated and had the same pattern. I was going to stop there because like I said, shabby, woodgrain and white roses need I say more?!

 

 

Well then I started to fussy cut.  It began with a sentiment or two.  I played around then then turned the plaque vertically and then I knew what I wanted to do.

 

I used it as a display for the most recent photos of my daughters and grand daughter (aren’t they beautiful??)

 

 

I fussy cut a few more items and then just began to layer and piece until I was happy with it. 

 

As always the final touches include adding a die cut title and some stitching.

 

 

I love the end product and one would never know that this is an upcycled thrift store find created using journal cards!

 

Now I challenge you to see what other things you can do with your journal cards.  Don’t be afraid to cut them apart they can be so versatile!

 

Laurel

Project LifeⓇ with Shelly | February 2015

Hi everyone! This is Shelly with some Project Life inspiration. I am sharing another average week in the life using the Jubilee “Wild Berry” Collection.  What a great collection of colors perfect for summer!

Supplies: Jubilee: Wild Berry – 6x6 Designer Paper Pad, “Hey You” Journal Cards, “Hey You” Rub-Ons, “Life” Mixed Bag; Other: Becky Higgins Design A Page Protectors, pen, date stamp, ink.

I am still plugging along with my 2014 album. I am happy to announce that with this week right here, I am half way through the year. This is week 26 of 2014. I am over the hump, and headed back down the hill. I am so excited to see my progress. Anybody else out there still working through 2014 memories? I have to say that it has been a very enjoyable process… this Jubilee Wild Berry Collection was just meant to be for warm summery weeks like this one!

 

For my title card, I trimmed down the paint strips. I really love when a sheet of pretty paper can hold its own when it comes to title cards. Those colorful stripes are perfect to hold my date or even journaling too.

As for the “Love” rub-on...I tried a little experiment.

I created my very own transparencies. I trimmed down a page protector to 4x6 size, and then rubbed away. It does take a little more time, but it worked! I know it is very possible to use those fun rub-ons right on top of your pictures, but I really like to keep my photos clean. When a photo is needed for a project, most o f the time with my children’s school projects, I just pull them out of this album. I don’t have to worry about ordering a picture last minute. I just write a note to myself to order another copy when I get around to ordering pictures.

I just placed them on top of my picture and slid them both into the pocket. They are crystal clear, but that added glare makes them very difficult to photograph. 

I added a few pieces from the Mixed Bag to label and add a little extra something to a few of my pictures. I never found a label I didn’t like and those Mixed Bags are full of them! They have such a great assortment.

Thank you so much for stopping by today. Have a wonderful day!

Shelly

 

Valentine's Layout

Hey there!  Missy here.  Can you believe it’s February already?  I love this month and all the fun Valentine related projects that go along with it!  I can’t wait to get my hands on the new MME releases, but until then, I decided to reach into last year’s stash of Lost & Found Record It to create this fun Valentine layout.  I love the different shades of reds and pinks and the neutral tans and greys mixed in with them.  Perfect for a layout about love!

I started with white cardstock and a fun heart cut file (from The Cut Shoppe) that I also cut on white cardstock.  I love the white-on-white look, and it gives a fun yet subtle kick to the background.  I used a few pieces of patterned paper and a few of the journal cards to create my layers.  Those cute hearts are from three different products:  patterned paper, a journal card and a piece of chipboard.  Those journal cards are so versatile.  I just hand cut the “I Love You” heart out and used it as my title.

Supplies Used: Lost & Found Record It! Heirloom – “Adored” Glittered Paper, “Sweet” Paper, “Formal” Paper, “Heirloom” Cards, Chipboard Elements, Sticker Accessory Sheet, Alpha & Word Stickers, Enamel Dots, Decorative Tape, Ephemera Pack, Decorative Brads; Other – cardstock, The Cut Shoppe cut file, October Afternoon date stamp, Liquitex Gesso, Artist’s Loft Watercolors, Brother Sewing  Machine, Coats Thread, Heidi Swapp Color Shine, Shimmerz Vibez, pop dots, black Sharpie pen.

I love machine stitching, and I used white thread to stitch through my background hearts.  Here you can really see the layers.  I incorporated an alpha and word sticker and enamel dot onto my layers as well.  I didn’t go too crazy with the watercolor, but I did add some subtle pink color behind my layers.

This was the perfect layout to use that adorable heart chipboard banner!  I love layering pieces like that.  This collection makes it really simple to create a project about love because the majority of it focuses on just that.

I hope this inspires you to start getting into the Valentine spirit and create something about your love for someone or something.  I know I’ll be making a lot more projects like this throughout the month!

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great day!

 

 

Mix and Match with Karen | February 2015

Hi everyone! This is Karen, back with another episode of Mix and Match!

For this month, I was thinking about how quickly time is passing and I wanted to focus on an update for my kids and how much they've grown and who they are right now in their lives.

I also wanted to use more silver since I liked using that last month. I often hear people worry about using pinks on boy pages so I also wanted to show you how I use lots and lots of pink on my pages even though I have two boys.

As far as I am concerned, nothing is unacceptable on any kind of page as long as you like it.

Here's the layout I came up with:




Since this layout is two pages in one, I always think about how to balance the two pages out so it's clear that they go together. In this layout, I used the narrow pink washi tape to join the two sides together.

I love how something so simple can give the feeling of uniformity. Also, since the top right was so embellishment heavy, I added a small cluster to the bottom of the right side page and one to the left bottom of the left page.

To me, these form a triangle that focuses your attention back to the photos and allows your eyes to stay on the page and not wander off.

Here's the top right cluster:




I want to mention a few important things about this cluster. This comes from three different MME product lines and I pulled embellishments apart and layered them to make them fit with my vision and goal for the page.

This is something I cannot mention enough times. You do not have to use the embellishments as they come. All of the MME lines play really well together and you can combine embellishments across lines old and new and come up with exactly what you want.

Here's the bottom left page:




For those of you who are like me and do a lot of journaling, you can still add small, lovely bits of embellishment to your page. These little bits can add personality and color to your page.

And here's the bottom right side:



I have noticed that I use the MME chipboard pieces more and more in my titles. I love coupling them with the small alphabets which then means my title can be super long or pretty short.

I also wanted to mention the stitching. I often love to stitch on my pages because it keeps the embellishments firmly down and it adds texture to my pages. It's also a great reminder not to focus on perfection since I can't stitch straight to save my life.

That's it from me for this month! I hope you've enjoyed this layout and if you have any questions or have or anything you'd like to see more of, make sure to leave me a comment. Have a great February.